


if I could name you in this song (would it make you smile and sing along)

by shinealightonme



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Humor, Karaoke, M/M, Meet-Cute, Nate is a hot mess in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 04:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8475937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: Nate just wanted to get Monty's number. There was never supposed to be any singing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Carbon Leaf.
> 
> There's some pretty heavy drinking in this one. Don't drink and drive, kids. Drinking and ficcing is okay, edit sober.

Nate had a plan, okay.

It was a simple plan. Which is a good thing. Simplicity is underrated and the fewer moving parts, the less chance that a plan will go off the rails.

It was a straightforward plan.

 _Elegant_.

So he can't really see how it got so far off track.

Probably it's because he involved Bellamy. That's never a good idea, but in this case he didn't see much of a choice, since he met Monty at one of Bellamy's parties. They'd had a great time talking and Nate had been right on the verge of scoring Monty's number, but then Monty had had to leave to take care of his super-drunk friend, and that was that.

In the last three weeks Nate has utterly failed to find Monty on Facebook, or to find anyone in their social circle who could set them up. He usually tries to avoid Bellamy's grad school colleagues, which as a life policy has served him extremely well.

But right now it means that he doesn't know any of their phone numbers. He doesn't even know which of them are on good terms with Monty.

He's pretty sure Octavia knows Monty, but she and Bellamy are in the middle of one of their semi-annual spats where they don't talk to each other, and there's no way Nate's getting in the middle of _that_.

Which leaves Bellamy. But he can't just _ask_ Bellamy for Monty's number, because Bellamy would give him some kind of horrifying pep talk, or play matchmaker and tell Monty that Nate wanted his hand in marriage, or something equally terrifying and dumb. All Nate wants is an hour or two in Monty's company in some kind of low pressure setting, and he can handle the rest for himself.

So that was the plan. Invite Bellamy out to a bar. Get Bellamy to invite some people along. Get Monty's number.

It was _so simple._

-

"Hey, you remember that shitty bar we used to go to?" Nate asks Bellamy. It's totally smooth. Bellamy can't even tell the conversation is being steered. James Bond's got nothing on Nate.

"The Kraken?" Bellamy asks, chewing on a pen. He has another pen behind his left ear, and a pencil behind his right. It's possible that he doesn't notice Nate is manipulating the conversation because he's in intense distracted research mode. Whatever, that just means Nate knows how to pick his moment. "Yeah, they once served us a _pitcher of whiskey_ , that's not the kind of thing you can forget."

"It's not like they filled the pitcher," Nate reminds him. "I was thinking, we should go back there."

"What? Why? You want to die?"

"So don't order a _pitcher of whiskey_ and you'll be fine."

"Okay, no, in this instance my liver is only the second thing I'm worried about."

"The bartender won't stab you. Probably."

Bellamy throws the pen he was chewing on at Nate. Ew. He could have at least thrown the ear-pen, which probably doesn't have saliva on it.

"We can't go to the Kraken because they _failed their health inspection_."

"Wait, they closed?" This is genuinely surprising to Nate. They haven't gone to the Kraken in a couple of years, not since the excitement of drinking at bars wore off and the appeal of buying booze in bulk set in, but he still works in the neighborhood. He'd think he would have heard about a local landmark closing, even if it's only a landmark because people tend to duck their heads and walk faster while passing it.

On second thought, maybe it's not a great place to take someone you're trying to impress.

"It didn't close," Bellamy says, which throws off Nate's whole train of thought.

"I thought you said they failed their health inspection."

"They got a B."

"A B is not failed."

"Do you know how easy it is to get an A on a health inspection, Miller? You don't want to know what's going on in that kitchen if they got a B. I'm not getting hepatitis because you want a beer."

Nate throws Bellamy's pen back at him.

"Fine, if you're paranoid. What's that place on Spring Street, with the creepy mermaid on the door?"

"The Siren?"

Nate scowls. "Why are all of our dive bars mythology themed?"

"Why are all of them terrifying?" Bellamy counters, then makes a face at himself. "Because they're dive bars, right. Except I think the Siren is trying to class up. They took the bars off the windows and everything."

"Cool, let's do that one."

"For what?"

"You said you wanted to go out with all of your grad school buddies," Nate says.

Bellamy blinks.

"Help you get through midterm grading?" Nate prompts him.

"Right." Bellamy blinks again, and pulls yet another pen out of his backpack to drum along the side of his book. He's trying to not let Nate realize that he doesn't remember saying any such thing, which is adorable; Bellamy doesn't remember because he never actually said it.

But hey, Bellamy's pretending so hard, Nate sees no point in ruining the game.

Nate would feel worse about tricking him if Bellamy hadn't spent most of the first year they lived together gaslighting Nate into believing that they had a third roommate.

"We could always do it at your place, though," Bellamy says. "Guaranteed to be free of creepy mermaids and pitchers full of whiskey."

"You don't know my life and my pitchers," Nate retorts. "And I'm not hosting your grad school buddies, they still party like they're students."

"They are students."

"They're old enough to know better than to pee in a red Solo cup if there's a line for the bathroom." Ruses to get dates aside, he is dead serious about never hosting one of Bellamy's parties again.

Bellamy shrugs. "Fine. I'll send out a signal for Tuesday night at the Siren. You down?"

Nate frowns. "I can't do Tuesday. What about Wednesday?"

Bellamy gives him a weird look. "You want to do Wednesday at the Siren?"

"Sure," Nate says. What's wrong with Wednesday? He thinks there's some kind of event. Trivia night, right? That's even better. Monty's a nerd, he'll get into trivia and they can -- brainstorm answers together, or something. "Wednesday."

"All right," Bellamy shrugs and writes a note to himself with a pen that he _pulls out of his sleeve_ , what the hell.

-

"Let the record show," Nate yells at top volume, directly into Bellamy's ear, which means he has like a 50/50 shot of being heard. "This is not what I signed up for."

Bellamy goes to toast Nate. Since Nate is not holding up his drink for a toast, does not even _have_ a drink, Bellamy ends up sloshing a buck-fifty in beer on Nate's t-shirt. "You said, Wednesday night at the Siren."

"You could have reminded me that Wednesday night at the Siren was KARAOKE NIGHT," Nate says, but that's right when You Give Love A Bad Name goes to the chorus, so he doesn't think Bellamy hears him.

Nate collapses against the pleather seat of the booth, defeated. It's a nice seat, a nice booth; Bellamy was right about the Siren trying to class up its act, though Nate would rather have been in the shitty dive he remembered from undergrad. It would have suited his mood better.

The fact that the bar is less divey than Nate remembers, and the fact that Monty actually showed up, are the only things tonight has going for it.

Against those things, Nate has to weigh the fact that he's at _karaoke night at the Siren_ and the guy doing Bon Jovi has clearly never heard a Bon Jovi song in his life.

"By the way," Bellamy yells at Nate, when the song and the inexplicable cheering -- were those fuckers even _listening_? -- have ebbed away enough to allow for conversation. "I signed you up for a song."

Nate freezes.

"I hope you don't mind."

"Of course I fucking mind!" Nate yells. He hasn't even gotten to say _hi_ to Monty yet, seriously, this is so not the plan.

"But it's _Dylan_."

"What makes you think I can sing _Dylan_?"

"Anyone can sing Dylan, Jesus, have you heard him? He sounds like someone shoved a harmonica up a vacuum cleaner," Bellamy says.

"I know you're not hating on Dylan," Nate fumes, but before he can launch into a defense of Bob Dylan, or a denigration of Bellamy Blake, or both, the extremely bored-sounding karaoke DJ announces:

"Okay, next up we have Nathan 'don't you dare weasel out of this, you shitface' Miller."

Nate snarls at Bellamy and turns away, but not before he can see the rest of Bellamy's friends -- Monty included -- laughing at the DJ's introduction.

He hunkers down, lowering himself out of sight of the crowd. He can hide out until karaoke ends. It's only, what, another four, five hours before the bar closes?

"Do we have a Shitface Miller in the house?" the DJ asks. "Shitface Miller?"

A fucking _spotlight_ pops up over the crowd, swinging here and there, indifferent in its search. Hands pop up, drunken patrons waving that they are Shitface Miller.

Enough of that. Nate finishes Bellamy's beer and stands, wiping the foam from his scowl.

He may be a shitface. And god _damn_ he hates karaoke.

But he won't let anyone call him out without a fight.

There's a small round of applause as he takes the stage and picks the microphone off of its stand, but he glares into the crowd -- as best he can through the completely unnecessary spotlight, what the hell, it's not like he's performing in Vegas -- and they quiet down.

Or they do until he says, over the opening chords of the song, "Bellamy Blake, you're a dead man." That sets off a round of jeers and laughter that nearly makes Nate miss the beginning of the song.

Which, if he was going to mumble his way through this, wouldn't be so bad, but he doesn't _half way_ do anything, so he has to glare the audience back into submission.

It doesn't work as well the second time.

"Mama, take this badge off me," he sings.

Someone in the audience laughs, and that sets off a chain of echos, _ha, ha-ha, ha_. What the fuck. These people clapped for Jon Bon Tone Deaf earlier but they're laughing at Nate? He's bad, but he's not that bad.

He gets to the chorus, _knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door_ , and people start whoo-ing, but it's sarcastic. He can tell. Sarcasm is his native language.

Bellamy might be one of the whoo-ers, and Nate might flip him off. He's got to do something to get himself through the song. It's a very long three and a half minutes.

There's applause -- loud, and extra-sarcastic -- when he finishes. Nate all but throws down the microphone as he flees from the stage. The karaoke DJ was one of the people cheering; it would be what he deserved to have to buy a replacement.

"You owe me a drink," Nate tells Bellamy, falling into the seat next to him.

"You already stole my beer," Bellamy tells him.

"I'm taking this one, too," and Bellamy rolls his eyes but doesn't fight as Nate takes his drink.

"Here," Raven says, dropping a shot glass in front of Nate. "Cheers."

"What's this?" Nate is, by nature, deeply suspicious. "You don't owe me a round, do you?"

"Apparently I do." Raven shrugs. "My bad. I knew you weren't going to put your name in for a song but I didn't know Bellamy was going to steal my idea. I should have figured on him being an idiot. Hope you like Cher." 

Nate can't kill Raven. They've known each other too long. She has too much blackmail material on him, and knowing Raven, it's all set up to be emailed to everyone in her address book if she suddenly goes missing.

Besides, she's the only one who can reliably get his car's engine to start in the winter.

But he thinks about it for a second, anyway.

"Cher? Really?"

Raven smirks. " _Do_ you believe in life after love, Miller? Inquiring minds want to know."

Nate's eyes flick over, involuntarily, to the other side of their long table, where Monty is being monopolized by one of the frivolous pretty boys from Bellamy's department, who Nate has deliberately forgotten the name of.

"I don't believe in anything anymore." He probably sounds badass, for a moment, but then it's ruined because the karaoke DJ is calling him back up on stage, again, and aren't these guys supposed to space out repeat performances? He was counting on the audience having enough to drink that they'd forgotten about his last go-round.

"Come on, Shitface Miller," the DJ goads him. "Or our bartender Clarke will have to cut you and your friends off."

That gets a round of boos from Nate's table, and even if getting cut off and kicked out is _exactly what Bellamy and his dickhole friends deserve_ , he can't quite see what part of that plan gets him Monty's number. Or gets him branded as anything other than a no-fun loser.

He tosses back Raven's shot and half of Bellamy's beer, and takes the glass up with him.

"You know, Raven, I used to think you were cool," Nate says into the microphone.

"Cooler than you, dick!" Raven yells back, to general applause.

He does okay, this time around. Nate doesn't think of himself as a guy who knows Cher, but it's one of those songs that he's heard a hundred times without really thinking about it, so he muddles through okay.

Which does not explain why the audience is _laughing_ at him again, or why Murphy the DJ -- now Nate's least favorite person in the world -- says "Wow, that was really something" in a total deadpan as Nate steps off the stage. The guy's a DJ for karaoke night at The Siren; there's no way that Nate's the worst singer he's ever heard.

Harper is waiting for Nate as he steps off the stage, a shot glass in one hand and a pained, apologetic grin on her face.

"I didn't know about Bellamy and Raven when I put your name in, I swear."

Nate sighs. "Just give me the shot, my night's ruined anyway."

"That's the spirit!" Harper says. "Why try and look for a silver lining?"

It's not enough to make Nate laugh, exactly, but it does remind him that Harper is one of his favorites of Bellamy's insufferable grad school buddies, even if he doesn't know her very well.

Then he takes the shot, and discovers that Harper sprang for the good tequila. He promotes her to 'number one favorite of Bellamy's insufferable grad school buddies, up to and including Bellamy.'

"You ever have one of those days where you're like, I got this, my life is pretty good, and then you end up singing Cher in front of a guy you're trying to sleep with while strangers laugh at you?"

Harper cocks her head. "That day specifically? No. But you just metaphorically described about half of my life."

"Only half?"

"The other half I knew I didn't have my life together to start with." Harper nudges him. "Which guy are you trying to sleep with? Maybe I could help."

"You seriously think any living human in this bar right now wants to have sex with me?"

Harper bites her lip. "Probably not. But I'm a halfway to a PhD in Gender and Sexuality Studies, this would be like a practicum. You're not going to deprive me of a chance to actually use my pointless degree, are you?"

Nate cracks a smile at that, which he figures is worth further embarrassment. "Okay, so, you know Monty, from the Engineering department?"

Harper doesn't respond, but it was kind of a rhetorical question, and Nate's busy trying to find Monty in the crowd. Last he saw him, Monty was near the bar talking to skinny-blond-guy, which is not great for Nate's mood.

So he's more than a little caught off guard when Harper does finally answer:

"You mean my ex?"

"What?"

Nate whips back around to find Harper with another pained expression on her face.

Monty is Harper's ex?

Oh, _god_.

"So, remember how I said my day had gone to shit _before_ ," Nate says, trying to figure out a way out of -- whatever the hell this is. He doesn't even know. Is she going to cry, or, or yell at him, or -- 

Laugh, apparently, and grab him by the shoulder. "Oh _Nate._ "

"Don't laugh at me."

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry, but I can't not laugh at you right now."

"Don't call me honey."

"Okay, okay, I won't," Harper says, drawing herself upright and putting on a serious expression.

That lasts for about a second before she cracks up again.

"Fine," Nate sighs, and Harper collapses against him, giggling helplessly. "You had some of this tequila too, didn't you."

"Maybe a little," she says. "But hey, friends -- friends _share_ , oh my god," and then she breaks off laughing again.

Nate sighs again, for dramatic effect, but puts an arm around her in a sort of half-hug, because everything's gone weird anyway, and also he's a little worried she's going to fall over. "You're not my friend, I changed my mind. You're not my favorite of Bellamy's grad school buddies anymore."

"No, don't say that!" Harper pulls away from him enough to shoot him a pleading look. "These are the deeply awkward fires in which friendship is _forged_ , Miller. Besides, if you don't manage to land Monty we _totally_ have to go barhopping together. Or even if you do. Really, you, me, barhopping."

"Wait, you seriously want to help me get with your ex-boyfriend?"

"When you put it like THAT it sounds terrible," Harper says. "But I'm in favor of my friends getting laid, even if it's with each other and not me."

Nate rests his forehead against Harper's shoulder. "I should have just gone to you for help in the first place."

Harper pats him on the head. "Yeah, you really should have."

"All right, you guys know what time it is," DJ Murphy says over the microphone, and the fucking bar starts chanting "Mil-LER, Mil-LER, Mil-LER."

Nate groans.

"I could take this one for you," Harper offers. "If anything's going to make people forget how terrible you are, it's a sad white girl rapping."

"No, I got it," Nate says. "Can't back down from a challenge."

"That's right, drink in that toxic masculinity."

Nate starts for the stairs, but turns back. This, he _doesn't_ want the whole bar to hear. "Do your homework while I'm up there, okay?"

"On it," Harper shoots him a finger gun and makes for the bar, where Monty is still chatting up that Classics fuckboy. Ugh.

-

The less said about Nate's rendition of Lose Yourself, the better.

On the bright side, he's really starting to feel all of the drinks he's stolen from people in the last -- how long has it been? Half an hour? Ten years?

Yeah, Nate might be kind of drunk at this point.

With any luck, he's drunk enough he won't remember performing Eminem in front of a bar full of people, several of whom he knows and at least three of whom were recording it on their cell phones.

(Did he know any of the ones who were recording? He's not sure. Maybe he should just destroy the cell phones of everyone he meets, to be safe.

Or maybe he should get another drink.)

"Hey, bartender." Nate thinks he remembers her name from that damn DJ who lives to mock him. "Clump. Clarice. Clarinet."

"Have you ever met an actual person named _Clump_?" the bartender asks him. She's got a sarcastic voice and a raised eyebrow that could cut a person in half. Nate would be into it, if she weren't quite so blonde and female. "I mean, Clarinet, there's probably some future runaway out there named Clarinet, but even the most delusional, out of touch white parents aren't naming their kinds _Clump_."

"Whatever, you have some kind of stupid name. Give me a drink."

The eyebrow rises up again. If Nate were any closer, he'd be bleeding in at least three places. "Okay, universe, when I said I was tired of customers hitting on me, this was not what I was asking for."

Nate rolls his eyes. "Look, I'm a fucking _wonderful_ customer, okay? Considerate as shit. I tip twenty percent. But I am having the worst night of my life, so _give me a damn beer_."

"Sorry." Clavicle does not look sorry. "But I'm worried if I give you a glass right now you'd break it in about five seconds."

"Why would I break -- " Nate asks, but Clumpette just holds up a hand with five fingers up, four fingers, three fingers, two -- 

"Next up, we have a man you all love to hate," DJ Murphy calls out, and Nate _thunks_ his head down on the bar.

"Okay, I have EMT certification and that made _me_ wince," Clairvoyant says. Her hands come to rest on Nate's head, cold and soothing. He hardly minds when she lifts his head off the bar and peers into his eyes. "Hmm, you don't have a concussion."

"Good?"

"Not really," Clamor says. "If you had a concussion, you wouldn't have to go sing."

Nate groans and drops his head again, but Clique's hands cushion the blow.

"Sorry, you're not allowed to give yourself brain damage on my watch."

"Heartless," Nate says.

"Yeah, yeah," Clisby says. "Go serenade us, tone-deaf boy."

Nate doesn't stumble walking back up to the stage, and anyone who says he does is _lying._

"Someone owes me a beer," he says into the microphone, which gets a round of cheers. He scowls.

Monty's friend Jasper dashes up to the stage with a beer that smells suspiciously like PBR. Nate should have specified _good_ beer.

Then the song starts. "Oh, fuck you and fuck Unchained Melody," Nate says over the opening notes. "You owe me a shot for this, too," and Jasper does at least provide him a shot, running and literally jumping over an empty chair on his way to the stage to get it to Nate in record time.

Which is for the best, because all Nate can remember of this song is Patrick Swayze. And he likes _Dirty Dancing_ better than _Ghost_ anyway. Not that he's ever admitting that, or they'll drag him back up here for Time of My Life.

He does the verses in a monotone and the chorus not much better. Judging from the constant hooting and hollering, the audience does not mind.

Things get -- a little blurry. After that.

There's a moment where Bellamy is hanging around Nate's neck, trying to rap _The Iliad_ in its original Ancient Greek.

There's a moment where Harper kisses him on the cheek and takes a selfie because "Mom's convinced I'm a lesbian and I like to keep her guessing!"

And there's a moment, gloriously vivid and crystal clear in Nate's mind, where he's pressed shoulder-to-shoulder against Monty.

"I think it's sweet of you," Monty is saying.

Nate _honest to god_ looks over his shoulder, to check if maybe Monty isn't talking to someone standing behind him. He has never been called _sweet_ before, definitely not to his face. "What?"

"You know, humoring your friends like that." Monty shrugs and gives Nate a very short-lived smile. "Even though you'd rather not, you're letting them have their fun. I think that's really great of you."

"Oh, I'm going to have my fun later," Nate says, as ominous as he can manage.

But Monty smiles at him, "No, yeah, that's fair," and it's a longer smile this time, and he's got this dimple that's very distracting, and by the time Nate realizes he should say something and not let the conversation screech to a halt, the DJ announces _yet again_ :

"All right, next up we have everyone's favorite weasel, Miller." Nate tries to note who cheers at that, for when he gets his revenge later on, but it turns out to be pretty much everyone in the bar minus Monty and Clockwise-the-bartender.

"Have fun," Monty says, with a small pat on Nate's shoulder.

Nate's not entirely sure how he gets up to the stage, but there's one thing he knows he needs to get clear.

"Who put me in this time?" he asks the DJ, over the opening bars of Friends in Low Places.

"No one, I was just bored."

Nate scowls at him. "I will end you."

"You know that's a crime, right? Here, take your beer and go sing already." Murphy holds the beer up, barely high enough for Nate to grab it, so that he has to reach and bend way over and miss the beginning of the song.

Right, because _that's_ what makes him look stupid tonight.

Then things take a weird turn.

Because -- okay, Bellamy and Raven and Harper, Nate gets, they all have the exact same terrible sense of humor. Jasper's a joiner, and Murphy is some kind of sadist who just gets off on torturing people.

What Nate doesn't understand is why _everyone else in the bar gets in on it_.

Some eighty-year-old-looking dude puts him in to sing Time Warp, from Rocky Horror, and at least said eighty-year-old-looking dude joins in on _dancing_ the Time Warp, because that draws most of the attention away from Nate.

An extremely misguided sorority girl winks at him as she hands him a shot and one of the two microphones for Summer Lovin'. Not that Nate can blame her. Nate makes a fantastic Danny Zuko.

Some bro in a popped collar puts him in for Total Eclipse of the Heart, which is six minutes of his life that Nate will never get back, besides being way too appropriate for Nate's mood. He doesn't need any on the nose song choices to express his pain, okay.

"I just don't get why everyone thinks it's funny that I'm bad at singing," Nate says, and suddenly realizes that the person he's been talking to is Monty. Had he said anything embarrassing while he was ranting? He can't remember. If there even is such a thing as 'embarrassing' at this point, or if his image is too damaged that nothing he does at this point will make it any worse?

"It's not that you're _bad_ at it," Monty tells.

"Hm?"

Nate really should have stopped accepting drinks as payment for his humiliation, like, several songs ago.

On the other hand, if he was going to get humiliated _anyway_...

"We aren't laughing at you because you're bad at karaoke," Monty says. "Lots of people are bad at karaoke. That's sort of the whole point of karaoke."

Nate moans. "Then why does everyone make me keep going?"

"It's the expression you have, like you're thinking about murdering all of us." Monty does not have an appropriate expression on his face for the words he's saying. Or maybe he does. Monty's face is appropriate for everything.

"Yeah, well, we can't all have your face." Nate puts his head down on his arms. "It's the best face."

Monty reaches over and pets his head, which feels _marvelous_ over the headache that Nate can already tell is brewing. He's getting hungover while he's still drunk, and that's _not fair_ , except, maybe that's the price for having Monty pet his head, in which case, yeah, it's probably fair.

"Oh, Nate, you are really, really drunk," Monty says.

"No," Nate says, and Monty hmm's at that. "Okay. Drunk. But you have the best face. Even when I'm not drunk. I like your face. 't's why I keep going up 'n' singing, 'cause'f y'r face."

Monty stops petting his head.

Nate lifts his head up off of his arms long enough to butt against Monty's hand, until Monty resumes petting Nate's head.

Monty makes a long 'hmm' noise. "Are you trying to use _being bad at karaoke_ to hit on me?"

"It's all I have going for me right now." Nate groans and thinks about what he's saying. Then he sits up, dislodging Monty's hand, and scrubs at his face with his hands. He sighs for approximately eighteen years. "So yeah, I am. Is it working?"

DJ Murphy comes on the speaker, "Next up, we have everyone's favorite shitface."

Nate groans again. "I think I'm going to die."

"Yeah, he doesn't need any more drinks," Monty says to the bartender. "Please don't serve him."

"Are you kidding?" the bartender asks. "I don't want to commit manslaughter, I switched him over to O'Doul's like four beers ago."

Nate points at the bartender, or where he thinks she is, anyway. She's kind of moving around in his vision. "You just made my list," he tells Closure.

"Yeah, I'd be scared if you could stand up straight," Clamshell says. She does not sound scared, at all. "Also if _everyone in the bar_ wasn't on your list."

Nate puts his head back down on his arms. "Not _everyone._ "

"Okay, shitface, where are you hiding," DJ Murphy says.

"Noooooo," Nate may or may not moan, depending on who you ask and how much of a liar they are.

"Okay, just, stay here and hold on, okay?" Nate's pretty sure that is Monty's voice, but at this point, he'd be willing to lie down for anything short of a steamroller.

"Nnnnngh," Nate says, attempting to convey agreement.

He doesn't realizes he's succeeded until he hears, distorted over a microphone but still clearly Monty's voice, "Okay, you've all had your fun, Nate's done for the night."

There's a loud chorus of boos, and Nate hates all of them, except for Monty, and maybe Classico, who is chanting something that sounds like "get him outta here, get him outta here."

"I'm not kidding, you've had your fun, and he's tired and drunk," Monty says. "If it really makes a difference, I'll sing -- wow, Evanescence? Really? I guess, okay -- Hoooooow can you seeeeeeee -- okay, this was a mistake, fuck -- "

This is around the point that Nate blacks out.

-

Nate wakes up, nauseous, in an apartment he easily recognizes from the barf-colored carpet.

"Bellamy!" he yells. "What the fuck?"

"Hey," Bellamy says, from ten feet away, which manages to be a mile too close for the way that Nate's head is pounding. "I was about to make lunch, you hungry?"

"No. What time is it?"

"One o'clock."

Nate slams his head on the carpet.

The split second before he does it, he honestly believes it will make him feel better, too.

The split second after, he kind of wants to kill anyone who has ever existed.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck."

"I called in sick for you," Bellamy says.

"What?" Nate croaks. "How?"

"You think I can't pretend to be you?" Bellamy mimes holding a phone to his face. "Hey," he grunts. "Miller. Sick. Bye."

Nate flips him off as best he can from a prone position.

Bellamy just smiles at him, which is an extra layer of sickness. "Be nice to me, or I won't give you your love note."

"What?"

"How much of last night do you remember?"

"Too much," Nate groans. "Nothing. What love note?"

Bellamy reaches over to something -- it's out of Nate's field of view, and _fuck_ if Nate is turning his neck right now -- and flicks a folded up piece of paper at Nate's face.

Nate feels it bounce off of his nose.

"I'll leave you two alone. You were gross enough last night, I'm not witnessing your lovesick bullshit a second time," Bellamy says, walking back toward the kitchen as though he were not wearing a hot-pink KISS THE COOK apron he'd gotten from his ex.

Nate flips him off again _in absentia_ , for the sake of the thing, and slowly unfurls the note.

Even more slowly, he smiles.

_Hi Nate,_

_I've never had someone challenge an entire dive bar to a karaoke match in my honor, and, I'm not saying that in itself is a good thing? But, you're really cute when you're pretending to start a fight with everyone in an entire bar, over my honor._

_Yours,_

_Monty._

_PS please don't have a knife fight with Harper, or anyone else for that matter._

-

"I'm just saying," Nate says, well-aware of the fact that no one will listen to him. "If I had to do karaoke, you should have to do something you _hate_. What would that even be, anyway?"

"I don't know," Monty shrugs. "Watching _Two and a Half Men_? Eating raw onions?"

"At the very least, you could have not named your team 'The Karaoke Kings," Clobberella the Bartender says, dropping a beer down in front of Nate. She does him the honor of serving him first. He would learn her real name, but he can't just go around letting people know he _likes_ them, so he doesn't.

"Why not?" Bellamy asks. "We _are_. Everyone loves us on karoake night."

"Everyone except _me_ ," Nate reminds him.

"Maybe you'll bomb at trivia the same way you bomb at karaoke," Bellamy suggests.

Nate glares.

Monty sighs the sigh of the long-suffering. "Don't worry," he tells his boyfriend. "I'm _really good_ at trivia."

"That's _worse_ ," Nate says. "You should have to do something that you're bad at."

"No, it'll be great," Monty tells him, and Nate is mollified despite himself. Monty is somehow adorable without the aid of alcohol, or logic, or reason. "I'll win trivia in your honor, courtly love style."

"Courtly love?"

"You know." Monty shrugs. "Knights, jousting, winning the favor of fair maidens..."

"Are you telling me 'hit a dude with a stick' was a option for getting your number?" Nate demands. "Because I would have done that in a _heartbeat_."

"You almost did it anyway," Harper reminds him from across the table. Nate still hasn't managed to get the full story on this supposed knife fight that he and Harper almost got into. He's treating her with an extra modicum of respect these days, just in case.

"I could have hit someone with a stick and not sing anything. That's the _dream_."

"But the karaoke was so much more meaningful, because it was such a trial," Monty says. "It's not very impressive for you to hit a guy with a stick if that's something you wanted to do anyway."

"But I could _also_ hit a guy with a stick." Nate glares at DJ Murphy, currently queuing up a track for the first question of the night, which Nate has already managed to miss, although he has not missed the fact that Bellamy is trying to wheedle an illegal hint from Clozapine.

"I'd rather you didn't hit anyone." Monty frowns down at their ballot for trivia answers. "Wait, no, this is _Knight's Tale_ , isn't it. Does that make me Shannyn Sossamon? Cause I always thought that was kind of a dick move, sending Heath Ledger to go get the shit beat out of him, and if I'm going to be a female character from a medieval comedy -- "

Nate laughs. He can't help himself. Who cares if the whole bar thinks he's an idiot? He's got an adorable boyfriend who thinks he's Heath Ledger.

"Maybe I _should_ let you fail at trivia on your own." Monty is trying to look devious, but he looks as adorable as ever, and maybe a little cross eyed. "Then you'd appreciate me."

"Yup, I don't appreciate you at all, I'm just in this for the trivia points." Nate throws an arm around Monty's shoulders and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

"You know, I bet if I asked Murphy, he'd turn on the karaoke machine..." Monty says.

"Okay, okay." Nate grumbles, but he's smiling, and he's pretty sure Monty can tell. "You're the greatest, I am not worthy."

"I wouldn't say _that_ ," Monty says, and leans back against Nate. "Just promise me you'll never try to serenade me."

" _Done._ "

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic, you can [reblog it on tumblr](http://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/post/152871668780/if-i-could-name-you-in-this-song-would-it-make).


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